Members of the Taean Council of Women, a local women rights activist group, hold a campaign against Japanese products in the parking lot of a post office in Taean, South Chungcheong Province, on Aug. 15, 2019. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Amid a prolonged boycott movement against Japanese products, most consumers are in fact refusing to purchase goods made in Japan.
In a survey conducted by the Korea Rural Economic Institute on 1,519 households in South Korea, 81.5 percent of all consumers supported the boycott movement.
The result comes as a stark contrast with last July, when 44.7 percent still had positive views on Japanese products.
As for the reason for supporting the boycott movement, 34.4 percent pointed to ‘Japan’s export regulations against South Korea’, followed by those who were offended by ‘right-wing politicians in Japan making hate speech against South Korea’ (28.8 percent).
Among all consumers, 70 percent have experienced giving up on buying Japanese products because of the boycott movement.
Among them, 83.9 percent gave up on purchasing Japanese food, demonstrating a close link between the boycott movement and food consumption.
The impact of the boycott movement has hit Japanese sauces the hardest (43.4 percent), followed by alcoholic beverages (34.6 percent), and dairy products (21.9 percent).
The reason why Japanese beer seemed to be most affected by the boycott movement was because of its sheer size of consumption in the past.
The fact that soy sauce, snacks, and other Japanese products used in everyday dining have been targeted by the boycott shows that the movement is exercising a strong influence on the entire food industry.
Japanese restaurants were also hit hard by the boycott movement as 33 percent of all consumers have increasingly refrained from going to restaurants run by Japanese enterprises.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
